Hermann Kovess

Hermann Kovess von Kovesshaza (30 March 1854-22 September 1924) was a Field-Marshal of Austria-Hungary during World War I.

Biography
Hermann Kovess was born on 30 March 1854 in Temesvar, Austrian Empire (present-day Timisoara, Romania). He was a member of the small Protestant Saxon Transylvanian minority, and in 1865 he attended the Hainburg Cadet School. He was promoted to Captain after graduating, and in 1882 he suppressed a mutiny in Dalmatia (Croatia). In 1894 he was made a colonel, which was controversial because he was a Protestant, not a Roman Catholic. By 1914, he considered premature retirement. However, World War I dashed his chances of an early departure from the Austro-Hungarian Army.

At the beginning of World War I, he led the Austro-Hungarian 12th Corps in Galicia and Russian Poland. He captured Ivangorod fortress during spring of 1915 and Belgrade in autumn, and in January 1916 he occupied the Kingdom of Montenegro and the Kingdom of Albania. After the Brusilov Offensive of 1916, Kovess took over the Austro-Hungarian 7th Army and fought against the Russian Empire in the wooded ridges of the Carpathians.

In the summer of 1917, he sallied from the mountains with his troops and took Czernowitz and Radautz. At the beginning of April 1918, he left Transylvania and was given command of Austro-Hungarian troops in the Balkans, a job that by now meant evacuating as many troops as possible. He defended the Danube-Sava Line in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, and when King Charles I of Austria gave up command of the Austro-Hungarian army, he made Kovess the new commander. However, on 3 November 1918 the last Austro-Hungarian troops were dispersed after the 31 October 1918 separation of Austria and Hungary. After the war, he cultivated his historical and artistic tastes, and he died in Vienna in 1924.